The Hour of the Dragon
'Fools!' muttered Conan thickly. 'Fools! Why could they not trust
Prospero? Zelata, if you are making game of me, with some trickery----'
'This has passed,' answered Zelata imperturbably, though somberly. 'It
was the evening of the day that has passed when Prospero rode out of
Tarantia, with the hosts of Amalric almost within sight. From the walls
men saw the flame of their pillaging. So I read it in the smoke. At
sunset the Nemedians rode into Tarantia, unopposed. Look! Even now, in
the royal hall of Tarantia----'
Abruptly Conan was looking into the great coronation hall. Valerius
stood on the regal dais, clad in ermine robes, and Amalric, still in his
dusty, blood-stained armor, placed a rich and gleaming circlet on his
yellow locks--the crown of Aquilonia! The people cheered; long lines of
steel-clad Nemedian warriors looked grimly on, and nobles long in
disfavor at Conan's court strutted and swaggered with the emblem of
Valerius on their sleeves.
'Crom!' It was an explosive imprecation from Conan's lips as he started
up, his great fists clenched into hammers, his veins on his temples
knotting, his features convulsed. 'A Nemedian placing the crown of
Aquilonia on that renegade--in the royal hall of Tarantia!'
As if dispelled by his violence, the smoke faded, and he saw Zelata's
black eyes gleaming at him through the mist.
'You have seen--the people of your capital have forfeited the freedom
you won for them by sweat and blood; they have sold themselves to the
slavers and the butchers. They have shown that they do not trust their
destiny. Can you rely upon them for the winning back of your kingdom?'
'They thought I was dead,' he grunted, recovering some of his poise. 'I
have no son. Men can't be governed by a memory. What if the Nemedians
have taken Tarantia? There still remain the provinces, the barons, and
the people of the countrysides. Valerius has won an empty glory.'
'You are stubborn, as befits a fighter. I cannot show you the future, I
cannot show you all the past. Nay, _I_ show you nothing. I merely make
you see windows opened in the veil by powers unguessed. Would you look
into the past for a clue of the present?'
'Aye.' He seated himself abruptly.
Again the green smoke rose and billowed. Again images unfolded before
him, this time alien and seemingly irrelevant. He saw great towering
black walls, pedestals half hidden in the shadows upholding images of
hideous, half-bestial gods. Men moved in the shadows, dark, wiry men,
clad in red, silken loincloths. They were bearing a green jade
sarcophagus along a gigantic black corridor. But before he could tell
much about what he saw, the scene shifted. He saw a cavern, dim, shadowy
and haunted with a strange intangible horror. On an altar of black stone
stood a curious golden vessel, shaped like the shell of a scallop. Into
this cavern came some of the same dark, wiry men who had borne the
mummy-case. They seized the golden vessel, and then the shadows swirled
around them and what happened he could not say. But he saw a glimmer in
a whorl of darkness, like a ball of living fire. Then the smoke was only
smoke, drifting up from the fire of tamarisk chunks, thinning and
fading.
'But what does this portend?' he demanded, bewildered. 'What I saw in
Tarantia I can understand. But what means this glimpse of Zamorian
thieves sneaking through a subterranean temple of Set, in Stygia? And
that cavern--I've never seen or heard of anything like it, in all my
wanderings. If you can show me that much, these shreds of vision which
mean nothing, disjointed, why can you not show me all that is to occur?'
Zelata stirred the fire without replying.
'These things are governed by immutable laws,' she said at last. 'I can
not make you understand; I do not altogether understand myself, though I
have sought wisdom in the silences of the high places for more years
than I can remember. I cannot save you, though I would if I might. Man
must, at last, work out his own salvation. Yet perhaps wisdom may come
to me in dreams, and in the morn I may be able to give you the clue to
the enigma.'
'What enigma?' he demanded.
'The mystery that confronts you, whereby you have lost a kingdom,' she
answered. And then she spread a sheepskin upon the floor before the
hearth. 'Sleep,' she said briefly.
Without a word he stretched himself upon it, and sank into restless but
deep sleep through which phantoms moved silently and monstrous shapeless
shadows crept. Once, limned against a purple sunless horizon, he saw the
mighty walls and towers of a great city such as rose nowhere on the
waking earth he knew. Its colossal pylons and purple minarets lifted
toward the stars, and over it, floating like a giant mirage, hovered the
bearded countenance of the man Xaltotun.
* * * * *
Conan woke in the chill whiteness of early dawn, to see Zelata crouched
beside the tiny fire. He had not awakened once in the night, and the
sound of the great wolf leaving or entering should have roused him. Yet
the wolf was there, beside the hearth, with its shaggy coat wet with
dew, and with more than dew. Blood glistened wetly amid the thick fell,
and there was a cut upon his shoulder.
Zelata nodded, without looking around, as if reading the thoughts of her
royal guest.
'He has hunted before dawn, and red was the hunting. I think the man who
hunted a king will hunt no more, neither man nor beast.'
Conan stared at the great beast with strange fascination as he moved to
take the food Zelata offered him.
'When I come to my throne again I won't forget,' he said briefly.
'You've befriended me--by Crom, I can't remember when I've lain down and
slept at the mercy of man or woman as I did last night. But what of the
riddle you would read me this morn?'
A long silence ensued, in which the crackle of the tamarisks was loud on
the hearth.
'Find the heart of your kingdom,' she said at last. 'There lies your
defeat and your power. You fight more than mortal man. You will not
press the throne again unless you find the heart of your kingdom.'
'Do you mean the city of Tarantia?'
She shook her head. 'I am but an oracle, through whose lips the gods
speak. My lips are sealed by them lest I speak too much. You must find
the heart of your kingdom. I can say no more. My lips are opened and
sealed by the gods.'
* * * * *
Dawn was still white on the peaks when Conan rode westward. A glance
back showed him Zelata standing in the door of her hut, inscrutable as
ever, the great wolf beside her.
A gray sky arched overhead, and a moaning wind was chill with a promise
of winter. Brown leaves fluttered slowly down from the bare branches,
sifting upon his mailed shoulders.
All day he pushed through the hills, avoiding roads and villages. Toward
nightfall he began to drop down from the heights, tier by tier, and saw
the broad plains of Aquilonia spread out beneath him.
Villages and farms lay close to the foot of the hills on the western
side of the mountains, for, for half a century, most of the raiding
across the frontier had been done by the Aquilonians. But now only
embers and ashes showed where farm huts and villas had stood.
In the gathering darkness Conan rode slowly on. There was little fear of
discovery, which he dreaded from friend as well as from foe. The
Nemedians had remembered old scores on their westward drive, and
Valerius had made no attempt to restrain his allies. He did not count on
winning the love of the common people. A vast swath of desolation had
been cut through the country from the foothills westward. Conan cursed
as he rode over blackened expanses that had been rich fields, and saw
the gaunt gable-ends of burned houses jutting against the sky. He moved
through an empty and deserted land, like a ghost out of a forgotten and
outworn past.
The speed with which the army had traversed the land showed what little
resistance it had encountered. Yet had Conan been leading his
Aquilonians the invading army would have been forced to buy every foot
they gained with their blood. The bitter realization permeated his soul;
he was not the representative of a dynasty. He was only a lone
adventurer. Even the drop of dynastic blood Valerius boasted had more
hold on the minds of men than the memory of Conan and the freedom and
power he had given the kingdom.
No pursuers followed him down out of the hills. He watched for wandering
or returning Nemedian troops, but met none. Skulkers gave him a wide
path, supposing him to be one of the conquerors, what of his harness.
Groves and rivers were far more plentiful on the western side of the
mountains, and coverts for concealment were not lacking.
So he moved across the pillaged land, halting only to rest his horse,
eating frugally of the food Zelata had given him, until, on a dawn when
he lay hidden on a river bank where willows and oaks grew thickly, he
glimpsed, afar, across the rolling plains dotted with rich groves, the
blue and golden towers of Tarantia.
He was no longer in a deserted land, but one teeming with varied life.
His progress thenceforth was slow and cautious, through thick woods and
unfrequented byways. It was dusk when he reached the plantation of
Servius Galannus.
8
Dying Embers
The countryside about Tarantia had escaped the fearful ravaging of the
more easterly provinces. There were evidences of the march of a
conquering army in broken hedges, plundered fields and looted granaries,
but torch and steel had not been loosed wholesale.
There was but one grim splotch on the landscape--a charred expanse of
ashes and blackened stone, where, Conan knew, had once stood the stately
villa of one of his staunchest supporters.
The king dared not openly approach the Galannus farm, which lay only a
few miles from the city. In the twilight he rode through an extensive
woodland, until he sighted a keeper's lodge through the trees.
Dismounting and tying his horse, he approached the thick, arched door
with the intention of sending the keeper after Servius. He did not know
what enemies the manor house might be sheltering. He had seen no troops,
but they might be quartered all over the countryside. But as he drew
near, he saw the door open and a compact figure in silk hose and richly
embroidered doublet stride forth and turn up a path that wound away
through the woods.
'Servius!'
At the low call the master of the plantation wheeled with a startled
exclamation. His hand flew to the short hunting-sword at his hip, and he
recoiled from the tall gray steel figure standing in the dusk before
him.
'Who are you?' he demanded. 'What is your--_Mitra!_'
His breath hissed inward and his ruddy face paled. 'Avaunt!' he
ejaculated. 'Why have you come back from the gray lands of death to
terrify me? I was always your true liegeman in your lifetime----'
'As I still expect you to be,' answered Conan. 'Stop trembling, man; I'm
flesh and blood.'
Sweating with uncertainty Servius approached and stared into the face of
the mail-clad giant, and then, convinced of the reality of what he saw,
he dropped to one knee and doffed his plumed cap.
'Your Majesty! Truly, this is a miracle passing belief! The great bell
in the citadel has tolled your dirge, days agone. Men said you died at
Valkia, crushed under a million tons of earth and broken granite.'
'It was another in my harness,' grunted Conan. 'But let us talk later.
If there is such a thing as a joint of beef on your board----'
'Forgive me, my lord!' cried Servius, springing to his feet. 'The dust
of travel is gray on your mail, and I keep you standing here without
rest or sup! Mitra! I see well enough now that you are alive, but I
swear, when I turned and saw you standing all gray and dim in the